Kirk seeks land deal with rebel congregations

Senior News Reporter

Saturday 3 November 2012

MINISTERS at two more Church of Scotland congregations said they are to quit the Kirk with their flock over gay ordination within months, with one saying "there's no way back".

WRANGLE: The Rev William Philip outside St George's Tron Church in Glasgow.

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BRIAN DONNELLY

The Herald understands special committees are to be set up within presbyteries to negotiate land deals with those looking to secede "sooner rather than later" as the Kirk continues on a "revisionist trajectory".

The two – who asked not to be named – are in negotiations with the Kirk for a buildings deal. One is in the north and the other in the central belt.

The special committees are designed to diffuse potentially explosive legal wrangles between congregations that opt to leave the Kirk and the Church's administrative base in Edinburgh, such as the landmark test case at St George's Tron Church in Glasgow. The Rev William Philip and his 500-strong flock at the city-centre site face eviction after becoming the first full congregation to leave the Kirk over the issue.The Church faces a wave of land-grab litigation cases with another dozen congregations planning to quit, according to sources within the evangelical movement in Scotland.Now two ministers from within the group of 12 have spoken for the first time about their belief they will break away from the Kirk well ahead of the General Assembly – the church leaders' annual gathering – in May 2013.The Tron case has prompted an outcry, with both sides insisting they have a right to the historic church building in Glasgow city centre.The Kirk's struggle with gay ordination – sparked by the appointment of openly gay Rev Scott Rennie in Aberdeen in 2009 – threatens its biggest schism since the Disruption of 1843 when hundreds of ministers left to form the Free Kirk.A Kirk investigation found nearly 20% of Kirk Session members, including ministers and elders, "would consider it obligatory to leave the Church" over the issue of gay ordination, and, if their parishioners followed, it is feared upwards of 100,000 churchgoers could take part in the exodus.That could mean the Kirk losing a large slice of the £40 million raised every year by the 1400 congregations that help pay for expenses such as ministers' wages.One minister said: "There are those who wish we were not on the revisionist trajectory, but we are." "We have been involved in a process [of talks]. That process has been useful and we anticipate it will lead us to leaving the Church of Scotland sooner rather than later." This is likely to be before the next General Assembly, he added. Another minister, whose congregation is based in the central belt, told The Herald: "There is no way back. The majority [of traditionalist congregations] are waiting until May but negotiations are already under way."Unless the Kirk "drastically overhauls" its policy, he said, "which we don't see them doing" the congregation would leave after the assembly.In 2011 the Church agreed to: "Resolve to consider further the lifting of the moratorium on the acceptance for training and ordination of persons in a same-sex relationship, and to that end instruct the Theological Commission to prepare a report for the General Assembly of 2013." That report will address issues of how to implement the policy, and it is for this that many traditionalist congregations have been "keeping their powder dry".A Kirk spokesman said: "We are aware of one or two congregations where some office-bearers have asked about leaving the Church of Scotland, but who have accepted what the legal implications of doing so would be."Furthermore, we still very much hope that members of the Church of Scotland would not take the precipitous step of leaving the Church before hearing the report of the Theological Commission which will come to next year's General Assembly."

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Kirk seeks land deal with rebel congregations

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